Isaiah 53:3

Isaiah 53:3. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

We rightly sing, -

"Rejected and despised of men,

Behold a man of woe!

And grief his close companion still Through all his life below!

"We held him as condemn’d of heaven,

An outcast from his God;

While for our sins he groan’d, he bled,

Beneath his Fathers rod."

His own people, ay, his own chosen ones, turned away from him; and you and I did so till God’s grace changed our hearts, and opened our eyes. But why was he "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief"? Why was the Prince of Israel such a suffering man? He had no sin for which to be chastened. There was no evil in his nature that needed to be fetched out with the rod of correction. Oh, no! The answer is very different: -